[spdustin]

I was about to comment about that... I've had one for years and still find clever things to do with it. For example, when searching a project in my editor for a string, turning the knob jumps between search results.

It's amazing how much functionality you can eke out of such a simple input device.

It's made me consider other purpose-built init devices (like some of the midi controllers mentioned earlier). I have a Native Instruments controller designed for one of their massive sample libraries that I'd love to hack as a general purpose programmer's helper.

Anyone have any experience with such devices? What other clever uses of these alternate input devices am I missing out on?

[ivanca]

Smartphones are largely unexplored as a secondary input devices. It can be a input for gestures (zooming, dragging, etc), as an extra place to add custom keys (think macros), custom sliders and other touch-based UI controls, or it can be a notification device ("compilation complete")